Awesomenauts update almost ready to go

Includes balance tweaks and two new characters.

The first update for Awesomenauts is almost ready to roll-out, Ronimo Games producer Robin Meijer has revealed on the PlayStation Blog.

"With this update, we've addressed two key concerns that we've heard from the community: balance and content," explained Meijer. "After two months of solid playing, we can confirm that the balance in the original version is pretty good, but not perfect. With this patch, we're taking a couple of steps to further improve this balance, and bring it closer to where we want it to be. We've given out a couple of buffs to some characters, and dealt out a few nerfs to those who deserved them. As a heads-up to insiders: some things that got nerfed include the damage of Voltar's Drones against turrets, Lonestars' missiles, and Leon's Slowing slash."

But that's not all. The update will also introduce two new characters. Coco Nebulon and Derpl Zork will join the original six Awesomenauts free of charge.

Coco Nebulon: The first female character within the Awesomenauts roster. She's a space-surfing chick that came from the watery world of Okeanos. She is great at harassing enemies with her Ball Lightning, which moves through everything and can be detonated at the press of a button. Whenever the tables turn, she also has a great move against chasers: to leave a trail of slowing, damaging lightning particles.

Derpl Zork: His primary special skill is to turn his Combat Walker into a static turret with a heavy cannon that deals massive damage. When this guy transforms into Turret mode, squishy characters better move out of range! Of course, he'll be stuck in place until he transforms back - so running away from him shouldn't be a problem. That is, unless Derpl uses his other ability - which places ensnaring traps on the battlefield. Derpl usually sits around in a field of traps, ready to blast anyone foolish enough to run into him.

Derpl has one last ace up his sleeve against enemies that try to get within range: the Trap skill actually changes into a Nuke-launching ability while in Turret mode - a large, homing Nuke that deals massive AOE damage.